MOYSHE-YUDL SHELYUBSKI

MOYSHE-YUDL SHELYUBSKI (1893-December 20, 1974)

            He was the author of stories and a publisher, born in Zhireve (Zhirova?), Byelorussia.  Around 1906 he emigrated to the United States where he was one of the founders of the secular Jewish school.  Together with Y. Radinovski, he established the publishing house “Idish” (Yiddish), which brought out a series of important works of Yiddish and world literature, such as: Ale verk fun avrom reyzen (Complete works of Avrom Reyzen) (1916-1917), Dovid Pinski’s dramas in five volumes, Y. L. Perets’s writings in thirteen volumes, translations of Heine in eight volumes, of Edgar Allan Poe in two volumes, of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, a portion of Dor dor vedorshav (Each generation and its scholars) by Isaac Hirsch Weiss, and books by Anatole France, Georg Brandes, Bernhard Kellermann, Aleksandr Kuprin, and others.  The publishing house closed in 1920.  He published his own first story in Warsaw’s Moment (Moment).  After a long break, he began publishing stories, articles, and surveys of Yiddish book distribution in: Fraye arbeter-shtime (Free voice of labor), Tsukunft (Future), Feder (Pen), Literatur un lebn (Literature and life), Unzer vort (Our word) in Chicago (1918), and elsewhere.

            His published works include: In der heym (At home), a story (New York: Literarisher farlag, 1915/1916), 126 pp.; Af a fuler vokh, dertseylungen (On a full week, stories) (Buenos Aires: Central Publ. of Polish Jewry in Argentina, 1951), 376 pp.; In der velt arayn, dertseylungen (In the world, stories) (Buenos Aires: Central Publ. of Polish Jewry in Argentina, 1957), 342 pp.; In yorn arum, noveln un dertseylungen (Years from now, novellas and stories) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1961), 312 pp.  He died in New York.

            “Where Shelyubski is realistic,” wrote Shloyme Bikl, “…he is not only a good and frugal drafter of men and events and many times stylizer of pious Yiddish idiomatic language, but he also hovers with moralist symbols around and above the stories.”

            “The folkist manner of his stories,” noted Froym Oyerbakh, “should not delude us.  He is not at all folkish, but individual and lyrical…[but] they constitute one element, one artistic totality.”

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Der Lebediker (Khayim Gutman), in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (April 10, 1955); Yoysef Okrutni, in Idishe tsaytung (Buenos Aires) (December 22, 1957); Ben-Tsien Goldberg, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (February 16, 1958; February 23, 1958; July 8, 1962; July 9, 1962); Arn Leyeles, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (August 5, 1962); Shloyme Bikl, Shrayber fun mayn dor (Writers of my generation), vol. 3 (Tel Aviv, 1975), pp. 366-73; Froym Oyerbakh, Af der vogshol, esey (In the balance, essay), vol. 2 (Tel Aviv, 1975), pp. 280-82; Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Berl Cohen